Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2008 19:01:10 -0700
Reply-To: Scott Daniel - Turbovans <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Scott Daniel - Turbovans <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Subject: Re: Regarding alignment..
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="Windows-1252";
reply-type=original
Very good Don,
OK,...........here is my quite effective, believe it or not, way to check
toe, camber, and castor.
On the toe in/toe out.......your method amplifies the measurement, and is
thus more accurate, but here's mine .......................
What I do is ...........and yes, the suspension always has to be settled. If
it was jacked up, need to move it several van lengths to get the suspension
settled again.
When I'm really picky, I'll drive and then stop the van using only the
parking brake, so the front brakes don't pull on the front wheels at all
during stopping.
These days I don't bother to do that......just stop it gently. Always
adjust tire pressure too of course !
I use two yard sticks. I get under there and measure at close to the 9
o'clock/3 o'clock position on the wheel or tire at the rear .
I find that that's usually one yard plus 18 3/4 inches............I overlap
the two yard sticks so it's easy to read that inch number.
Then I measure in the front ..............if I had 18 3/4 inches in the
rear.......
I'd like to see about 1/16th to 1/8 inch less in the front. Just a tiny bit
of toe-in.
On some cars you can't measure at the 3 o'clock position on the tire or the
wheel, due to suspension parts in the way.
I just measure as high up as I can get.
I'll often make a small change, then wait until I drive it next time, and
measure it again.
( I won't go into it right here, < well, I guess I did > but if the
steering wheel is not quite centered........you can figure out which tie rod
to make longer or shorter to bring it towards exactly centered. I do it
like this : First I measure and say it's toed-out. and the steering wheel is
off center to the left. I think like this ............I hold my hands out
exaggerating toe-out ..............and remembering that the steering is in
the front of the front wheels..............I think.........ok, if I shorten
the right tie rod - move your hands so both are pointing
left............then when the steering, pulls naturally to straight ahead,
it will pull the wheel to the right, the direction I want it to go. . )
next ......Camber. That's whether the top of the wheel leans in or out. If
it leans out, that's called Positive camber.
All you need is a flat level floor, and a construction level, and a small
ruler.
I stand the level up with the base of it touching the tire where it bulges
out on the bottom there..........and hold the level to exactly vertical,
then measure with the ruler to the wheel rim edge on the bottom and at the
top. If it's say 3/4 inch at the bottom, and 5/8 inches at the
top.........that would be 1/16 inches leaning in at the top. Or slightly
negative camber. I don't even know what the stock spec is. ......but zero
camber to slightly negative camber is what's normal.
Anything like leaning in 1./4 inch or out 1./4th inch ...........I'd say
that's too much. Positive camber ( leaning out ) is definitely weird.
If it was barely leaning out, I might leave it alone, because as you turn
the eccentric upper a-arm inner mounting bolt to change the camber, that
also affects toe and castor, so be careful there.
next.............camber .......we can at least check it for being the same
side to side. Turn the wheel full left, and measure camber with the level
of both wheels.
What you'll find is that at full left lock, the left wheel leans way, way
out, like two inches. Even 2 1/2 inches. Note what that measurement is.
Now go to the other side, and you'll see that the right wheel only leans in
a little..........maybe 1/4 of an inch.
Now........turn full right............and do the same thing.
That's what you should find............and about equal left to
right..........on a tight turn, the inner wheel leans way out, about 2
inches top leaning out, and the outer wheel for that turn leans in a small
amount. And both sides should be pretty equal.
You do those three things carefully.............and you'll be quite close
........even better than in the ball park.
Normally, toe is the only adjustment you want to go messing with a lot.
Always be careful with changing camber or castor, as they affect each other
back and forth, and toe.
I'm, very pleased that recently on a front end I'd had all apart for new
bushings here and there.........and then gotten pretty nice, I undid one
side to change a steering rack boot, and I knew to add the tiniest bit of
toe-in ........since it had measured at zero toe a few times, and I wanted a
tiny bit of toe-in. I didn't measure anything..........I just did this small
'tweak' on the toe on one side...........the side that was going to bring
the steering wheel more to center too.
I swear that van drove another 5 % more smoothly. ( FS btw.........83
Westy with 2.1 engine & hundreds of repairs done to the whole van . )
Scott
www.turbovans.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Don Hanson" <dhanson@GORGE.NET>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2008 7:13 PM
Subject: Regarding alignment..
> For a quick and dirty alignment, it's easy to do yourself with no special
> tools. At least getting the wheels pointed correctly.
>
> Here's how I did it at the racetrack on my previous ride: Get a couple
> of
> straight pieces of particle board (or equivalent) Make em about 8 or 10
> inches wide and a little longer than the diameter of your tires. put a
> few
> holes for bungee cords..these will go around behind the tire or into the
> wheel spokes or wherever you can to hold the boards against the wheel, on
> edge, with the center of the board's length in line with the hub's center.
> You may have to space the board out with some blocks so that it clears the
> tire and only contacts the wheel rim..Make sure the board is laying flat
> against the wheel, one on each rim..
> Then just measure across the vehicle under, by hooking a tape on the
> board
> across the van and measuring to the other board..Do this in front of the
> tire, then behind and you have found out your Toe In or Toe out.(the
> difference between the board ends as measured in front vs rear)..adjust
> the
> tie rod(s) and you can bring the toe to where it needs to be...
>
> The other settings, like caster and camber...dunno on a vanagon, haven't
> done mine yet.
> But the toe in, you could do in about 20 minutes..When you make an
> adjustment to the tie rods, you must roll the van forward and back to
> allow
> the wheels to relax into their new alignment. Toe in/out seems the most
> important in how the vehicle steers and how the tires wear. You'll
> probably
> find the factory specs in the Bently book. It is not rocket science,
> despite how they make it look at the fancy shops with all those lasers and
> mirrors and racks, etc...Many racers do it with strings and stuff and get
> remarkably good results...in fact, I preferred to do my whole P-car rather
> than have a shop do it. A very slight change in the alignment really
> affected the handling..Learning the "art" of suspension was quite
> interesting and rewarding.
> Don Hanson
| 
